Uranium in the Drinking Water
by BF110C4
Summary: The arrival of the HMS Fearless and its captain heralded the greatest social and military upheaval in Grayson's history and Quinn, Jane and Daria Sloane bear witness to those changes while trying to avoid being swallowed by them, or the approaching war...
1. The Thee Wives

Uranium in the Drinking Water

Chapter 1: The three wives

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. Honor Harrington series, characters, and settings are the property of David Weber.

This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Daria was contemplating how to proceed to the next part of her new book; she knew what was supposed to happen in the next scene, knew the events that leaded to the scene as well as the consequences that would follow, but for the Tester she couldn't find a way to describe the scene itself. Frustrated with the attempt she decided to better watch for a while how Jane did the final touches to her latest sculpture with a few carefully applied hits of her hammer on the stone. Sitting alongside her Quinn was working under the light of a lamp in a new dress, using her thread and needle on the pink fabric to great effect.

In a way she was quite envious of her fellow wives, not that she would tell them even under pain of death, since they had interest that were more than acceptable for a Grayson woman. At least their husband encouraged and helped her with her own literally endeavors, if in a covert manner.

They were lucky to successfully court Tom Sloane, Fielding heir, despite their relatively lowborn status. Jane especially being a commoner from the Lane clan was lucky to even having the chance to speak to the eldest and sole heir to Angier Sloane name and fortune, much less to being in the position to court him in such unconventional way. Even for Grayson women who had a numerical (dis)advantage of a three to one female to male radius and therefore were forced to get quite competitive to get a place as one of the wives of any gentleman, the hurricane like approach that Jane had taken in which she had shown him some of the more popular parts of the city of Lawndale, parts that many of the noble families didn't knew existed, much less someone as highborn as the young Thomas had been the way to capture and keep his interest in a point of his life that he was weary of the multitude of balls, state dinners and a myriad of inane social gatherings.

It was through Jane that the two sisters of the almost extinct Morgendorffer clan had come to met Tom. Quinn, who at the time was still more worried about social status than anything else had used the opportunity to try to woo him, mostly to brag to her fellow members of the Lawndale Young Ladies Association that she had a future Steadholder holding her bags and buying her dresses. For some obscure reason Thomas Sloane was not a man who followed the usual conventions when women were concerned, he had the traditional respect that every Grayson gentleman had for the fairer sex, but he always took a deep pleasure bringing down social climbers and hypocrites who tried to get into his good graces; and chief amongst those were Sandi of the Griffin clan and of course Quinn. It wasn't until after Quinn surrendered to the fact that with him in love with both her sister and her best friend she didn't stood a chance, and showed him, completely by accident at that, her more natural and complex personality that they finally felt in love.

Daria had being a special case even then. Unlike the other women she hadn't be the one doing the courting in the Grayson tradition, her confrontational personality being such that she had already turned away with extreme prejudice a couple of suitors arranged by her mother to improve the social status of their branch of the family, and not all of them on purpose either.

She still felt guilty of the way she had treated Ted DeWitt-Clinton, she hadn't realized just how isolated he had grown after fighting cancer in his early years. The fact was that he survived, but for years had lived virtually alone while his immune system recuperated and while having an excellent education had lacked any kind of meaningful social development with peers his age. Ironically enough it had been his broad knowledge the thing that had attracted her long and hard enough to try her had at courting him, just to be brushed aside in a way that for a Grayson teenage boy could and was considered quite insulting, in the end she had ended the day with a broken heart.

The only reason she had being anywhere near Tom was that her friendship with Jane, even then the best way to describe her feelings for Tom was a deeply dislike, if not outright hate, borne out of her resentment about the gradual lost of her best and only friend. In the end that resentment might have been enough for Jane to drift away from her forever if not for the fact that for some reason unexplainable to her Tom had been smitten hard by her sharp tongue; and gradually the spiteful battle of wits between them grew into a reluctant respect for him when she finally learned that behind his infuriatingly smug persona was a surprisingly progressive and caring man quite unlike his own apparently distant father. From then on their mutual respect grew into real affection, and finally in the end she accepted that she felt in love with him.

He amply demonstrated his love and respect for his wives by allowing them to pursue openly both the fashion designer hobby of Quinn, as well as the diverse and often controversial art of Jane and then nurturing those until they reached the point they were well established and renown in their professional circles and then acting as an business manager, setting banks accounts on his name only to go around the laws forbidding women from legally owning property. The money they earned they could use as they saw fit, with no restrictions whatsoever on what they could or couldn't expend. Their satisfaction of knowing that the money they expended was earned and not given, despite the fact that any petition they made to Tom, no matter how weird, was done without questions or complain, brought a deep sense of accomplishment that they wouldn't get otherwise.

In Daria's case the matter was far more complicated. Sewing, knitting and all fashion related activities are a respected activity for a woman to have, and even selling those creations is an honorable way of earning purse money for the household as long as they don't earn more than the husband of course; and the arts are an acceptable hobby for a lady as well, one that with the correct spin could be sold or displayed in any of Grayson's galleries without any particular stigma; even if some of Jane's works did push the limits of tolerance quite a bit.

On the other hand female writer are limited to a few select topics. Books about cooking, cleaning, and other household activities are usually written under a woman's name, poetry, and children books while a little less common could also be openly published as they are related towards the so called emotional side of the 'weaker sex'; however the kind of violent suspense novels Daria has always wrote was the kind of lecture than any woman in Grayson would not be strictly forbidden by their mothers and no editor could ever publish such a book under a woman's name without the fear of being censored by society and church alike.

When Tom read the first of her short stories about Saint Barbara Bancroft he arranged for her to have full access to the Sloane's private library, including their climate controlled library, which had been steadily growing for the last few centuries and had some original records of the civil war and even a few paperbacks from the Landing, in order to carry on her research. He also took it on himself to pass her all the notes and recordings of his history classes and do all of his relevant homework alongside her and his other wives when requested; and when it became absolutely necessary he did some consultations in her name to Doctor Gregory Paxton, his teacher at the Mayhew University. They had been careful enough but still Tom confessed that he was quite sure that Doc Greg was more than a little suspicious of the true origin of his questions and while the good doctor threw a not so innocent barb or two about how much smarter were his pupil's questions after a day of two to reflect on them, especially after she published a couple of articles directly related to topics Tom asked, he never acted on them.

Years later when she finally was satisfied with her manuscript he sent it to a series of editors under many different and almost paranoid layers of security including an assumed name and bank account, all of them with supporting documentation. Contact was done through mail, and payments were laundered by the steading's bank in complete anonymity. Her first book 'Melody of Power' became an instant bestseller, praised for the rigorous research of the events that led to the bloody civil war as well by the revolutionary interpretation of the saint that saved Grayson from destruction. From then others books followed describing such events as the harsh life of the first generation colonists and an obscure theological text with interpretations of the scriptures analyzed with an historical perspective that resulted in a constant interchange of letters with reverend Sanderson of the Church of the Humanity Unchained.

"Hey sister, when does Tom get back from the ministry?" Quinn asked. It was quite curious how many meanings did the word sister had in the Sloane house. Traditionally the wives of a same man called themselves sisters, but Quinn and Daria were blood sisters as well, a rare but not unheard occurrence. To muddle matters even more, Quinn was the first wife to be married in their multiple wedding, a place that was given to her neither by seniority nor pedigree; with Jane coming second despite being the first one to successfully court their husband; and Daria, the oldest of the Morgendorffer clan, being the last one to marry, even if the other two took her cue in most matters. Such weird arrangement came after one tense meeting between the prospective wives and her mother in law from the fact that Jane genealogy was completely unbecoming for the first wife of a future Steadholder, and of either of the Morgendorffer sisters Quinn was far more socially capable and therefore the one who was less likely to step on the toes of the politically connected acquaintances that their husband would frequently met.

Her answer came into a monotone that sounded far sharper than the words contained would have warranted. "No idea Quinn, Angier sent him to the Ministry of Industry in Austin City to settle the details of the incoming merchantmen from Manticore, and that means that he's going to cross swords with Jared Mayhew for the next few days. You know how than man thinks that the economic might of the Star Kingdom is going to crush the local companies despite the fact that all our economic relations already do so by having an industry hundred of years ahead of us, not to mention that their lack of spiritual commitment is going to corrupt the mores of all us good little Graysons."

At the mention of Jared all three women couldn't help but to grimace, the Minister of Industry was one of those men who excused their backwards habits and spiteful personality within the mantle of tradition and strict adherence only to the scriptures that matched their beliefs. He sincerely believed that women were to b protected due to their lack of any valuable quality other than having babies, and on the social gatherings he expected them to be brainless mannequins that only served food and drinks to their husbands and then stay quiet in the corner while men discussed important matters.

On the few state parties they had coincided he didn't bother to hide his contempt towards either Quinn passion for fashion or especially Jane's artworks, much less about the fact that they dared to sell their creations. The only reason he didn't criticize her books was that he didn't know she wrote anything at all, or for that matter that she could write at all. She didn't felt left out anyway, he was still a little too angry about her well thought retorts against his own deeply biased rhetoric and when she responded some of his stock rewritten scriptures with the correct unedited versions she was for a moment hopeful that he would strike her in public, an act that would mean the end of his political career and quite a few months in jail, not even the second in line for the Protector's title could harm a woman. But alas Howard Clinkscales, a man just as traditionalist but with far more class stopped his ally from committing such a mistake. The stern talk she had with both of the senior Sloanes as well as her mother, and the following half a year of etiquette classes under Madame Li were more than worth the effort.

"Well, I hope that they at least they bring some cute new fabrics to work with, spider silk is good and all, but I would love to have something original to work with for a change." Once again Quinn was sounding like the high school airhead who almost failed classes on purpose in her belief that men preferred women who did not think too much, and as always Daria automatically felt the need of remind her just how she sounded.

"Yes, since spaceships are known for carrying bulky and cheap clothes as bribes for independent nations instead of useful things like high tech to modernize us, medicines for our many, many issues, and a weapon or two to keep those psychopaths of Masada from our backs."

"If it's any consolation I doubt that they bring any art supplies with them either Quinn, at least not in the first load… Who knows what kind of things will they bring when we open lines of commerce with them?" Jane responded, having finally finished with the hammering. Sweat soaking her tight working clothes, that no male would never be allowed to see, she took a water bottle that was safely out of range of the dust cloud resulting from her art and was about to drink it when she noticed the orange colored stripe that stood out in the black bottle . "Yuk, the water filtration system must be down again."

"Let me see." Quinn approached the bottle and carefully checked the stripe, "Orange again, that means heavy metals, right? One of the filters in the water purifying system must be overflowing again. I'll call the staff." In any other of the thousands of worlds that humanity had colonized such a statement would require the immediate evacuation of the household to a safe place while Hazmat teams were called in. However in Grayson humans there was no such safe place, the whole planet was composed of the heaviest metals ever found in a colonized planet.

"Don't bother, this is the third time on this month those damn filters have stopped working and I fancy surviving lead poisoning long enough to develop lung cancer. I'll take a look, I need a break anyway." In any other planet repairing a water filtration system capable of dealing with the quantity and toxicity of the materials they were working with would have required a technician with some quite exotic qualifications and a full hazmat suit. However in Grayson every woman by necessity knew more about overpressure and filtration systems than most engineers would, lack of formal college education notwithstanding.

Grayson was a deathworld, one of the cruelest ever colonized by humanity, where the water, the ground, and the air itself were sooner or later lethal to its inhabitants, and that sustained life only due to the stubborn determination and sacrifice of its people. To bother about minor things like Uranium in the drinking water would be simply unbecoming.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

This is going to be a fusion between the Honor Harrington series, starting on HH2: Honor of the Queen and detailing the series of social changes that Honor brought with her as well as the dark days of the Masadan Aggression from the eyes of Quinn, Jane and Daria Sloane, wives of Thomas Sloane heir to Fielding.


	2. The Captain's Arrival and Departure

Uranium in the Drinking Water

Chapter 2: The Captain's Arrival and Departure

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. Honor Harrington series, characters, and settings are the property of David Weber.

This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

_Aren't we missing the point?_

_By Darius Xavier X__._

_During the last few weeks the topic on everybody's mouth had been the arrival of the Merchantmen convoy from the nearby binary system of Manticore, during that time all Grayson was speculating about the technological marvels that would be stored in their cargo bays, the might of the escort warships that would be protecting the convoy ant that on a glance from the few published reports are bigger and nastier than then best units in our (or Masada') navy and the complex diplomatic game between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven that the accompanying diplomatic delegation under Admiral Raoul Courvosier would play. Now all that is on the papers is the fact that the captain in command of the escort's ships is a woman._

_Captain (Senior Grade) Honor Stephanie Harrington of the Royal Manticore Navy is the Captain in command of the Heavy Cruiser HMS Fearless, and by virtue of seniority the de facto commander of the other light cruiser and destroyers that are currently showing the flag in the system. She is not the only woman, in fact the second ranking officer is Commander Alice Truman of the HMS Apollo, and there are dozen more women, both officers and enlisted personnel as part of the complement of the warships. _

_Captain Harrington herself has been a polemic figure long before arriving to the system. She is, according to the official brief given by the Star Kingdom's embassy, a highly competent officer with ample experience as a customs officer as well as counter piracy operations; she has also participated in rescue operations both in space and during natural disasters. She has faced space combat in multiple occasions, more recently the destruction of a pirate squadron in Silesia, a part of the space infamous for the large number of lawless buccaneers._

_On the other hand she has on her record more than thirty official complains from the Haven and a similar number of those from private companies of which only ten are from havenite companies and another fifteen came from manticorian shipping companies. She also damaged once a diplomatic courier boat by passing to close to it with active impellers, a dangerous maneuver._

_But the real hot point between both star nations is the incident in planet Medusa and the subsequent destruction of the 7.5 million tons freighter PMSS 'Sirius'. Haven describes how after the freighter heard of a massive nativeinsurrection in the planetary surface the civilian captain had a panic attack and ran away towards the hyperlimit and the Captain Harrington frustrated over her inability to do something about the situation landside went to persecute it, and then launched a warning shot too close to the vessel that was destroyed over the subsequent nuclear explosion._

_The version of the royal navy is quite different, denouncing the fact that the Sirius wasn't a merchantman but a heavily armed camouflage ship that caused the smaller light cruiser serious damage and killed or injured half of its crew before being destroyed. A few days later the arrival of _three Havenite battle squadrons was confirmation enough of the duplicity of Haven and Miss Harrington was promoted two full grades for her actions.

_In the end I think we shouldn't care one way or another about who is right and who isn't regarding this incident since the havenites already won more than we can imagine by the discussion. Their objective is to prevent the Kingdom of Manticore from establishing a naval presence in the system to counter piracy in the area and add a strategic depth between the two opposing nations. The gross but ultimately innocent miscalculation of the Royal Navy has given Leonard Masterman, the Havenite ambassador to Grayson a chance to redirect the attention of our people from the establishment of a Manticorian Naval Station and the modernization of our navy and industry._

_It is easy to see why the two biggest powers in this corner of the inhabited space suddenly took such an interest after centuries of being ignored by the galaxy at large, the only thing needed is a Star Chart to realize that Yeltsin and Endicott are the only two stars in the region capable of sustaining a human population. A Naval base here would become a nodal point for both the merchant and military fleets of either side, one which would require the human manpower we can offer._

_And then there is the effect that such a hypothetical naval presence would have on Masada. As the members of our armed forces who have been able to look inside on of the RMN ships can attest, the might of these vessels can easily be described as unreal, with speed, power and precision far beyond our capabilities… or those of the Masadans. Just the ability to contact the galaxy at large would have make a difference in the last war, with the destruction of many of our cities qualifying as a breach of the Eridani Edict with grim consequences._

_That's why every word expended on Harrington's hair length is one word not used to talk about the generous economic incentives offered by the Star Kingdom to help lighten the high costs of housing and feeding our population. New materials and industrial processes that will improve the quality of life by sharing the latest technologies in starship design and construction, technology that could be easily be applied to our orbital farms and even our homes._

_Every time we talk about the fact that she isn't wearing a dress is time lost without implementing the medical advances that the rest of humanity has found in the centuries since we colonized Grayson. New treatments for lung cancer, which is the third most common cause of death in the planet are already being shared, no strings attached, and in the future we might be eligible for the application of Prolong, that has the potential to increase our life expectation up to two hundred years and is already available in the Star Kingdom in their basic health care._

_Each question we do to the delegation of the Star Kingdom of Manticore regarding the suitability of a woman for commanding a warship is one less of those warships willing to patrol our nearby space for the pirates that has been plaguing the region or to add modern defenses that would bring our military capabilities to the standards of this century and allow us to end the Masadan threat of renewed hostilities and nuclear bombardment of our cities._

_Captain Harrington and the rest of her crew is but a insignificant part of the Royal Manticorian Navy, someone that in a few weeks at the most is going to leave the orbit probably to never return. One year from now, two at the most, no one is going to remember even her name so Grayson would be better served if we start the process now and dedicate ourselves to deal with the important businesses and let her name fade into history._

Quinn carefully folded the latest edition of the Lawndale Sun she had been reading on her way to the latest tea party with the Lawndale Young Ladies Association while silently chuckling, she could almost feel Daria's frustration in the last part of the article. The past week she had been going from reunion to reunion trying to gather just what was the mood of the high society in the Fielding Stead and frankly she was exhausted. When she had been younger and single she had dreamed about being a Steadholder's wife, of the glamour and the envy of all her peers as she went from one party into another. Finally she understood what Daria meant when she said to her once, 'Be careful what you wish for…' even if then she had said so warning her about how Tom dealt with clingy ladies and not how she could be surrounded of the wives and sisters of powerful people until she was almost hoping to be married to a nobody… almost.

At least she knew that her fellow sisters were suffering as much as she did, if not even more. Jane for example was visiting diverse members of the Lane clan who were dispersed through half a dozen of Steadings working in many different trades and hobbies. While the branch of the clan they were part was full of nice if a bit crazy wanderers, the rest of the family was filled with stuck ups worthy of one of the First Five Keys. Due to the nontraditional way they had raised their five children they had expended most of Jane's young criticizing her and the rest of the family, and now that she was the second wife of the Heir of Fielding and Trent was commissioned as a Fielding's Armsman they had all reversed their position trying to get in their good of using her new connections to get payback, or at least mock them back as she would have done in her place, Jane had left them in peace and nowwas using their relief and so called gratitude to get a feel of how the population at large was reacting to the Harrington scandal all while barely holding back all those snappy comments that she had always reserved for hypocrites. At least she was able to squeeze an art event or two in her schedule.

Daria on the other hand was suffering her own Test in the planetary capital gathering information on the negotiations under the stern eye of Kay Sloane so even she was hesitant to cause too much ruckus in the balls and state dinnerssponsored by the Protector and other interested parts, therefore stopping cold any semblance of fun of the kind she usually amused herself to pass the time in those gatherings. Both Daria and her mother-in-law would have preferred for the eldest to stay at home while the first wife was left in charge of socializing as it was tradition, but in this particular caseDariawas better at understanding and correlating whatever snippets of information she could catch from the little chats high level politicians and technical experts of either side were having whenever they thought no one important was listening.

So far,as Quinn could tell from the letters Daria had been sending to both of her fellow wives,she had caught that some of the Manticorian shipbuilders that came along to sell their spacefaringtech were far more interested in the inertial compensator developed by 'Grace, Sloane, and Page' R&D divisionfor Grayson's ships that their offhand comments on their primitive constructions techniques would lead to believe. Of lesser importance were the carefully worded discussions concerning the modernization of the orbital farms even if one of the economists in the delegation considered the facilities as merely a curiosity that would disappear with the advent of magical manticorianfood.

Even her habitual column was an uncomfortable compromise between her desire to defend Harrington (or more appropriately to condemn the idiocy of the men dealing with the entire affair) and the petition of Angier, and the fact that he asked her directly sent a loud and clear message to Daria and Tom about how he could end her little hobby without any effort, of a neutral article designed to get the attention of the public to the important matters. Frankly she was surprised that he hadn't mentioned it before. Darius XX. Really? The name and writing style were so damn obvious that he probably just read one of her articles and follow the cadmium trace right to the source. And Daria still thought of her as the airhead of the family.

As she passed her paper to her armsman Jesse Moreno she reflected about just how right Daria was on her column, people was more worried about Miss Harrington than about the diplomatic mission of Admiral Courvosier. So far the talk of the women of the Ladies' Gardening Guild was discouraging, she agreed that her hair was atrociously short and would look bad even on a man, much less someone with such a nice figure behind those dreadful clothes, in fact that particular discussion was the mirror of one she had years ago regarding Daria's habit of finding the ugliest and less flattening dresses and combine it with the ugliest glasses she could buy, for those parties she was forced to go by mother Helen. But on the other hand she had to force herself to be quiet when the rest of the members of the guild talked about her supposed lack of composure had led to the death of those poor merchantmen in had been barely a whisper for the initiative sponsored by Protector Mayhew through his wife Katherine to ask in an open letter for the interchange of new species of flowers and trees to the xenobiologist attaché in the Manticorian embassy.

This was particularly serious due to the importance Grayson gave to gardening into their society. In Grayson people weren't buried,due to the lack of fertile earth during the colonization years they had used the remains of their dead to fertilize the crops, a practice that eventually evolved into the Gardens of Remembrance. Some family gardens were centuries old, so a basicprerequisite for belonging into Grayson's high society was to know how to take care of plants and therefore take care of the roots of your clan; so while the power of the guild was almost non existent in theory in practice its member's husbands were the steadholders, steaders, and businessmen that control Grayson.

She was forced to end herruminations when the sudden stop of the car told her they had arrived to the Blum Decker's ancient home. Steeling herself for another session of posturing and petty power plays with the President of the Lawndale Young Ladies Association, Sandi Griffin she took the hand of her designed armsman and took a step out of the vehicle.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"…And then is decided that this next season the ladies of the Association will wear a sky blue accessory to any and all formal reunions, with the exception of Remembrances to represent their affiliation. Tiffany, please coordinate with Secretary Stacy so that we can properly inform our lesser members which accessories are acceptable to this purpose." President Sandi Griffin gave the order with her usual brutal assuredness, as always governing the inner circle of the LYLA with an iron fist that was definitely be at odds with the gentler image she projected in the larger public meetings.

To be fair,as far as dictators went,Sandi was a good leader most of the her leadership the Lawndale Young Ladies Association had grown from a local club into a reputablestead wide organization, even if for doing so she had shamelessly used Quinn's reputation as a Steadholder's heir first wife and as a fashion designer of some note to legitimize and publicize the association.

The beef with Sandi came from the fact that she was constantly minimizing her contributions in private to prevent her from seizing power. The irony was that she simply didn't care one way or another about being anything more than the LYLA vice-president, she had been in Lawndale's fashion club in her teens to get more suitors in the balls and dinners that they were supposed to organize and to get her mother out of her hair regarding her free afternoons; and now she had a husband even more important than her wildest dreams, one that incidentally didn't really care about the popularity of the Fashion club before or the LYLA now, and a successful but somehow time consuming hobby/job. The only reason she kept her post nowadays was due to the 'suggestion' of her mother-in-law that it would be a waste to throw away such and advantageous post now that she had developed it into something meaningful.

Sandi's natural attitude towards politics was inherited from her biological mother Linda, who was an active member of her own share of charities and guilds and incidentally a fierce rival of her mother Helen, reason why the mothers from both sides occasionally fought between them using her daughters as proxies. The constant struggle to keep herself in power during high school and beyond against Sandi later sharpened her political acumen to levels that let her ready to deal with a Steadholder political struggles. In fact in retrospective her time in the Fashion Club had been more educational than all the classes she had under Madam Li's school.

"Yes… Mad..am… Pres..ident… …I'll…coo…co..ordi..nate… with… Stacy… so… that… we… do…not… look… fat." Tiffany had suffered from lead poisoning during her infancy leaving her with a language disorder that was far beyond the capabilities of Grayson medicine to cure as well as an obsession with her figure due to her withholding water during junior high.

"Okay, next item on the agenda Secretary Stacy?"

Stacy Griffin nee Rowe checked her little black notebook before answering the question. "Umm, we have an open question about what can we do about Captain Harrington."

"Then I declare the floor open on the matter of Captain Harrington and her crimes against fashion."

Quinn could barely suppress the groan that almost came from her mouth at hearing just how Sandi worded the issue. Even worst was the fact that her father Tom was a VP for the local KSBC TV network, while Sandi's, and Stacy's, husband Robert worked as an accountant for the same company, meaning that her opinion did matter in the big picture.

"She… looks… weird… with..out… a dress."

"Yes she does not dress properly for a lady, in fact even the masses know better than to dress like that. And that's not counting her hair; it's not only unbound, but so short that if looks as if it was styled by a five year old girl with stolen scissors."

"Oh, like when your brothers put gum in your hair and you had to wear it short for months? ..." Stacy's answer came in the form of a fulminating glance, "eep." She couldn't blame Sandi for feeling bitter about the whole matter, she had heard from their own mouths than her father had belted both boys hard enough for them to miss a couple of days of class and then signed them for one of those violent 'youngcadets' program to teach them discipline and the correct treatment of a the worst part was that even Sandi agreed that for once it had been an honest accident.

Deciding that a change of topic was in order before Sandi made Stacy cry, again, she added her own two bits. "I agree that she does not dress properly but that's hardly her fault, uniforms are not exactly optional in a navy, and at least she does fill those slacks nicely enough. Can you imagine how freakish would she look in one of our dresses with her height?"

The stormy face of Sandi told her immediately of the huge mistake she had committed by mentioning the Navy. Ironically enough both brothers had developed a taste for military discipline and enlisted as soon as they were out of high school instead of going through college as their father now Chris was a spacemanworking in oneof the Navy's fortsand Sam was in boot camp not far behind, and in the process both of them had become estranged from the Griffin clan in the process.

"I don't know why a woman would want to be in the navy in the first place, especially if she can't hack it under pressure. She can't even go anywhere without her pet cat.

Stacy hesitantly interceded for the "I don't know Sandi, it is a quite cute cat, and it looked well behaved in the TV."

"Really… cute."

"The fact that it looks cute doesn't matter; someone like her lacks the proper poise of a Grayson woman. She only needed tohear the shots of some restless primitives for her to completely lose her composure and blow a merchantman out of space.

"Sandi, that's according to the havenites; the manticorians say that those primitives were about ten thousand natives armed with guns, and that merchantman was armed and refused to surrender, and lest not forget that her ship did show up with more holes than an old sweater."

"Oh please, if I committed such a shameful mistake I would also blow my own ship to hide the truth."

'Like you did when WE needed to organize that party, isn't it?' Quinn thought while thinking her next step, she knew by experience that openly fighting the point would be a losing proposition; a phrase that Kay Sloane taught her about politics came to mind, 'those in the right attack, those in the wrong defend'.

'And I have been doing a lot of defending lately.' She thought tiredly.

"And what do we do Sandi?" Stacy's question came a little too fast, probably her first wife 'asked' her little sister to give her that opening.

"I propose that the Lawndale Young Ladies Association writes an open letter to the diaries regarding our firm and steadfast opposition of having a woman as that Harrington in our esteemed Grayson."

Now Quinn was worried, of all the possible reactions that Sandi could have that was the worst, the assignment that Angier gave to her was to keep the Steading's public opposition of Manticore's delegation to a minimum, and an article in the paper from one of the most respected women associations was not going to help at all.

She decided that extreme measures were called for, "I don't know Sandi, an article of the paper might be ignored and they could put us in the same category than that Danny or Darius or whatever he's called…" She knew how much Sandi detested Daria's column, and how proud her sister was of that, "instead we could write a petition to my father-in- law to demand her expulsion from our orbit. If the entire association signs it, he will be forced to do something." She silently asked for Angier's mercy when he heard that she mixed him in this mess. Maybe later she could lose the letter?

Sandi was debating with herself the merits of her idea versus appealing to the Steadholder of Fielding, luckily enough she was the kind of people that gave more weight to the opinion of a powerful man than to the masses, she wasseriously contemplating following with her desperate maneuverwhen Tiffany decided to talk.

"Why… don't… we… do… both?"

"Tiffany, you're a genius. Secretary, please start redacting our letter for the Lawndale Sun, well pass it to all our members for them to sign it, alongside a letter for our Steadholder." She had the smile of someone who got the cake and could eat it too

"Yes Sandi."

This time Quinn couldn't suppress her groan. Outmaneuver by Tiffany Blum-Decker from all people.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Trent could clearly hear the sounds of her sister puking from the other side of the door. This was the second time in the last couple of days, that he knows about,that she had to excuse herself to go running to the nearest bathroom, and he had started thinking that maybe Aunt Bernice'sCasserole wasn't the culprit.

Usually Lord Sloane(or Mr. S. as he referred to him in private and out of earshot of the vets of the guard) would use public pollsand his personal contacts to determinate which way the wind flows, however the lady captain coming in with the mantiesplayed havoc with his usual methods; the polls written for the arrival of the delegation suddenly become obsolete with the guys making the questions either spinning the things to their own tune or trying to cover the sun with a finger; steaders and stealdholders alike were acting ongut feelings and popular pressure and long times political allies had all but broken apart due to old fashioned spiritual beliefs that no one took seriously anymore. Case in point Lord Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette broke up long held contracts with some of his older commercial allies in other steadings to put pressure on their Steadholders to expulse all females from the orbit. Fielding manufactured spare parts for the orbital farms, and losing the trade of one of the original five steadings would badly hurt the economy.

The only answer to the problem that his brother-in-law could give to his father was to personally getthe real info; something easier said than done as they had found out.

Jane's part in the whole mess was to discreetly gather support for the manties from the artistic and athletic communities as well as check out popular opinion to see just how off were the polls with respect to reality; right now the steaders were being moved by the most vocal part of the public opinion (demanding that they expulse the manties from their space before ThatWoman could cause an incident);which could either represent half of asteading's people or just a couple hundred loud and angry blue collars.

That meant that she had to 'visit' their extended clan who are part of different guilds and trades and get a feel of little guy's thoughts... if he's thinking at all. To make things worse, since a mere woman would never would be able to meet with syndical leaders or guild masters despite her current status as nobility, she had to organize family dinners and parties and then encourage them to invite the community leaders she needed to see hoping that they would be curious enough to come and see the Pauper Princess, as the more sensationalist press had called her when she married Tom.

At least he had been allowed to escort her during the entire gig even if he was just a common armsman of the regular Guard and not yet part of the Fielding's Own, but he was getting there. He had an unfair advantage in the guard being part of the ruling family, even if only by marriage, but he was recommended into the Guard by one of Tom's armmen after he had done the traditional 'take care of my sister or else…' speech, and he had been beaten by his bodyguards for it. Totally worth it losing those teeth.

'Eyes on the Prize Trent, eyes on the Prize'

Usually they wouldn't let him being within a mile of one of the heir's wives, much less without the husband present, but being her brother meant that she could act as her Protector without unsettling the family and people would talk more freely with him that with her. In fact part of his obligations for the trip was to go and have drinks with the guys after the formal part of the evening was over.

The only positive aspect of visiting each and every relative they had in the planet, other than the opportunity to remind them just how far the two losers of the family had gone, was that the excuse that they had for the endless meetings was to promote art, culture and sportsmanship, in and out of Fielding therefore being guests of honor in many different art museums, sport clubsand studios. He had been able to collect signed baseball cards for all his pals in the Fielding's Guard.

"Umm Trent, is Jane all right?" A balding man in a cheap suit and a horrible green tie asked.

"She's only a bit sick from all the travelling we have done lately." There was that slight sense of payback he felt when his uncle Max, who years ago delighted himself by calling him a lousy rotten bum whenever they see each other, looked at his dress uniform. Yesterday he had been dressed more or less casually and his uncle had treated him as a slacker, but tonight he was in his official capacity as a corporal and he had to dress the part.

Then finally the door opened and Jane stepped out, a little pale but still radiating her newly acquired aura of command that D's sister and Lady K had trained out of her.

"Are you okay Madame Sloane?" Uncle Max asked her directly this time, using the most formaltone of voice he was capable of. Asking a lady a question so directly was a breach in protocol for upper class Graysons, however she was also family and that allowed a little more of leeway.

"Don't worry Uncle Max, is only the dust outside, I guess that the count is a little higher than I thought. And please call me Jane, we're still family." Once he was sure that her sickness wasn't his fault, and that an angry steadholder wouldn't ask for his head on a plate he went to bother someone else.

As soon as he was out of sight she relaxed and was about to say something before suddenly stopping and half leaning, half collapsing on the nearest wall.

"Whoa. Are you okay Janey?" Trent asked as he went to hold her. It took a second for her to respond. "Fine, fine, I just felt dizzy for a second. I guess that Aunt's Bernice food is far worst that I expected."

"Let me call Sarge Smith for the car and we can blow this joint, okay." Trent was already reaching for his mic went Jane's hand hold his. "No Trent, I still need to talk with the wives of the Burdette's Environmental syndicate leader, if I go now you can bet that the gossip column is going to spread it as far as they can, and Quinn will be unbearable after all the teasing Daria and I did for the Fashion Club article.

"But Janey…"

"But nothing, I just need a few calories, a double serving of dessert and I'll be alright." With that she once more regained her grit and returned to the table, once more looking like a pureblood noble rather than the rebellious daughter of artists and photographers.

Trent considered the stakes his sister was dealing with and after a second of hesitancy took out his comm."Sergeant Price, here Corporal Lane."

"Here Price, what's the matter Lane?"

"Sir, I need for you to call to Doctor Demartino and program a consult for Lady Sloane-Lane as soon as we arrive to Fielding City."

"Is that stomach bug still bothering her?"

"I don't thing is a bug sarge. She's always been quite resilient to those."

"I don't think Steadholder Sloane is going to be too happy if she has to cancel the rest of her agenda." The growl that emanated from his earphone would usually make Trent to shut up and pray it wasn't directed at him, but this time he ignored it completely.

"With all due respect to Steadholder Sloane, my duty is first to my charge and sister, and then to his agenda."

The laugh of the veteran sergeant caught him unawares. "Ha, we can still make you one of our Own, Lane. I'll make the call, you tell Lady Sloane-Lane."

He hopedthat the doc wouldn't ground his sister before the visit to the Sword's Museum of Art in Grayson city. If she wasn't allowed to go to the only place that she had been anxious to go then she would kick his ass so hard that he wouldn't be able to play in the band for a month.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"…and then the Kudzu adapted itself to the high concentrations heavy metals as well as it did with any of the challenging environments it found in Old Earth, demonstrating how the Test is given to all us, from the smallest plant to the mightiest human, even if in this case the Test done by our forefathers is still ongoing and consist in preventing such a plentiful vine from chocking the rest of our gardens." Lady Katherine Mayhew, first wife of the Protector therefore ended her exposition in front of the Ladies' Gardening Guild to the sound of claps and demure (and not so demure) laughter.

Kay Sloane, first and only living wife of Angier Sloane, Fielding's Steadholder, resisted the urge to sigh at the antics of the spectacled woman in what was definitely the most austere dress in the entire hall, servants included. Other than her the table was empty of any other ladies; all of the other occupants leaving the place at some of the most poignant and barbed comments her daughter-in-law gave about the exposition, the expositors, the location and the public, just to mention a few; comments that she would have usually censored and redirected to prevent an incident, but that in this particular occasion were sadly necessary. It was therefore with great anticipation that some of the newest members of the guild saw, from a safe distance where no one would mistake them as acquaintances of the guilty party, Lady Mayhew coming directly to the table, probably to deal with the upstart who had caused such disruption and had resisted any and all attempts of censure.

'If they are waiting for a fight they're going to be sorely disappointed,' thought Daria Sloane, Third wife of young Thomas Sloane, with a smile as she saw the small and amiable figure coming her way. Even the closest friends and fellow sisters of both still couldn't understand how one of the nicest and more demure ladies in Grayson could get on so well with the single most infuriating, rude and sarcastic woman in Grayson that had yet to be stoned.

"Dear Daria; how was my presentation in this occasion, did I pass muster?" Kat said, referencing as usual the long, ferocious, and ultimately successful historic debate she had with the spectacled girl in a memorable meeting of the Bancroft Association when they first met.

"Well Kat, I don't know what is the saddest part, that you can write and present an interesting, exposition of Kudzu while keeping both the basic scientific theories and the historical facts straight and only being allowed to expose it to Grayson's most meddlesome wives, who have never been inside a college classroom other than to deliver lunch to their husbands, and a bunch of boring botanists; or that said wives understood and learnt more from the exposition than the botanists, who are now quite envious of Benjamin for reasons not related to his pedigree," she said with a small smile.

That last bit was the truth; women from aristocratic families in were expected to help maintain the ancestral Gardens of Remembrance. In Old Earth that bit of gardening would have been in the worst case a little work intensive but not particularly difficult unless actively experimenting on grafting different species of crops or other similar advances techniques; however in the glorified toxic dump that was Grayson gardening meant filtrating heavy metals from the soil before mixing it with an specially prepared fertilizer, usually made from a compost prepared with the organic waste of a house, but after the death of a loved one, using the flesh and the ground up bones of the honored deceased for the mixture. Then, after seeding they would carefully irrigate the plants with purified water; every few days the plants needed to be tested for accumulated chemicals in its roots, and then, if the levels weren't so high that it had to be destroyed, long term care began.

The plants were grafted every few months with different plants not only to give them access to more resistant variants, but from time to time to limit their own evolutionary tactics, it wasn't unusual for certain plants to develop ways of accumulating the heavy metals harmlessly -for the plants- and therefore they had to limit the evolutionary pathways to the less capable of survival, recently with limited gene-scans, for the wealthiest families that wanted to preserve the specific strains of the flowers planted to commemorate a relative from previous generations instead of just planting a new safer plant.

And those were the requirements for ornamental plants, the precautions needed for edible food were simple madness, with more or less ten times as much work needed and even then more than 30% of the harvest was destroyed in quality control due to dangerously high levels of toxicity. It was small wonder that on the recent push towards a population increment the sacrifice was done to update the orbital farms no matter the burden it imposed to the economy.

At least all that practice women had in gardening left them with an instinctual understanding of the principles of biology that was unsurpassed in the rest of the galaxy (at least for the common folk, Beowulf gene splitters are a different matter altogether) and the city boys who were into generic botany simply couldn't match the amount of practical experience gathered in such a way. Kay herself was still teaching Elsie, the only daughter of her long dead second wife, the art of planting tomatoes, one of the most expensive delicatessens in Grayson due to the nightmarish tendency of the plant to absorb everything in the soil and atmosphere.

"Madame Mayhew, why did you ask us to meet with you here instead of on a more proper setting?" With that the veiled humor Grayson's First Lady had on her face ended abruptly. "Somewhat disappointing news Lady Sloane, my husband received notice today in the morning that the Fearless is leaving alongside most of the warships to escort the remaining merchantmen to their destination."

Kay saw the expression of her daughter-in-law shift from the cynical and disrespectful teen to a more professional façade. "Which ships?" The answer made her grimace. "The Apollo and the Troubadour."

"Then Harrington is taking Miss Truman and Commander McKeon with her. This is bad; she's leaving with the only other female in a position of authority and McKeon was her second in command during Basilisk. The dinosaurs are going to celebrate this as a victory of the proper mores of the Grayson people over the scandalous actions of the Manticorian heathens. Is the admiral going with them?"

"No, Thankthe Tester he's staying on the Madrigal with the remaining cargo ships. It's going public in a few hours; Benjamin wants to see what kind of damage control our allies within the Keys and the Steaders can do before it does."

"Well, ideally he could issue a gag order to keep those idiots from rejoicing at kicking away a military task force stronger than our entire standing navy." Kay decided to let the improper language in the discussion pass with only a frown. "But doing so would be ignored by most of the opposition and would weaken his position even more. What we need to do is to redirect them towards something more practical, like watching baseball reruns. But the most important thing right now is to salvage our relationship with the Manticorians before we lose them altogether"

Kay decided to intercede at the last part. "It really can't be so serious; they still need us for a fleet base."

Daria's answer was anything but reassuring. "Yeah, but how much is their pride willing to tolerate before they give up on us? Our press has been particularly vicious in this matter, so vicious that itwould causeaGrayson husband to literally riot if he heard those things said about his wife. We don't know nearly enough about how thick is Queen Elizabeth III Winton's skin and gratefully those morons didn't attack her directly, but to know how one of her highly decorated officers was treated here will at least make her reconsider the amount of interaction our two governmentsshould have. They might decide to omit the economical treaty altogether and limit themselves to a naval station in the outer reaches of the system. And then we would be the ones forced to accept, since everyone, even the esteemed Keys that insulted Harrington, know that Manticore is a hundred times better as an ally than Haven, and a lot closer; the only other choice would be to choose no one and see us in the crossfire between the two largest fleets short of the Solarian League. And I don't need to tell you how fun it would be if they declared themselves neutral in any dispute between Grayson and Masada."

Katherine added. "Benjamin does not believe it will reach those extremes, but he does fear that the economic package would be seriously reduced, and Admiral Yanakov believes that they would limit the modernization of our navy to the minimum required if they thought that the differences between our navies were irreconcilable. It does not help at all that his counterpart admiral Courvosier has a great esteem and respect for Miss Harrington and was her teacher during their academy days."

Kay now was beginning to feel the start of a nervous migraine. "So we didn't only drive away a large percentage of their delegation, but we insulted their lead diplomat in such a way that if he was a Key he could demand to the Protector that a fairly large number of our Council Members be whipped? You're right Daria, this is a disaster."

"Yeah, whipping as a punishment has been banned in all Steads, even if is still in the constitution, just before the part of trail by combat with sharp overgrown knifes; and while I bet that the Protector would love to have a legal justification to break out the rawhide whips from their ceremonial place in the walls, the Admiral does lack the legal requirements to ask for it… but maybe if Angier sponsored him?"

"There will be no whipping under our name. The Sloanes were amongst the first to repel such barbaric laws after the civil war and we're not throwing away generations of mercy no matter how satisfying it would be."

"A shame…" Daria and Kay were surprised to hear that whisper from one of the gentlest souls in all Grayson, but before they could question her Kat continued. "But that doesn't answer my question, what can we do to clear the filters before we poison the home?"

"Well maybe is not such a bad thing in the short term that Miss Harrington is gone, the opposition will necessarily calm down, it's harder to attack a person who is not present to remind the rest of her failings, especially if said person cannot defend herself.I can remind the wives of the most honorable members of the Keys and the Council just how bad it would seem from our point of view if a Grayson woman was treated like that, no one does the shame game like a mother can."

"And for the hotter heads I think that Tom can play to their fears, he can tell them from his experiences with a improperly educated woman such as I what does he imagine Queen Elizabeth would think of the way we have been treating one of her captains? I mean, when she committed such horrifying mistakes on Basilisk did she did what any sensible man would and properly apologize from the woman's scandalous attack? No, she reinforced the military presence on the system and ordered all havenite vessels to be searched for contraband, even the ones with diplomatic immunity. And that was against a star nation far more powerful than they are. What would Manticore do to a poor planet like Grayson when we are the ones to injure such an unstable woman sensibilities?"

"Daria I wish you weren't so… abrupt in the way you expressand see yourself. You're not nearly as bad as other people see you, and it saddens me so to see you so isolated on occasions."

"Don't worry about it Kat, I worked hard at Finishing school to gain that reputation and it would be a shame for sixteen years of being repulsive to the popular to be thrown away just like that. And anyway, you and Tom demonstrated that the people worth knowing won't be deterred."

"While I do agree with Lady Katherine that your disposition could definitely could be improved we still don't have a solution to the main problem. Even if we can keep opposition from causing more harm, how do we repair what's already beendone?"

"Since both of you shut down the option of giving them blood to satiate their thirst for vengeance and justice, maybe we should try to show them the other side of the coin."

"What do you mean?"

"Something to show them we're not neo-barbarians who slave their woman like some brutish Masadans?"

"The Foreign Office has diverse cultural and technical presentations scheduled with selected members of the delegation including a state dinner with Courvosier and his team of economists by the end of the week. While it was supposed to be a working week I guess we can use their division in smaller groups to have more personal conversations with all the parties."

"And then we tell them what? Sorry for the treatment of your captain, maybe if next time she wears a veil we might be able to have a civilized conversation in which we tell her how life is while she nods in the appropriate places." As Katherine winced at the Masadan references, Kay finally had an idea.

"No, we invite them to informal meals with some of the livelier families before and after their working sessions; show them that a Grayson wife is anything but a slave, and that our way of life comes from the love of our husbands and not out of outdated social conventions. In fact I believe that it would be an excellent idea to program a dinner where Jane, Quinn, Tom and you Daria have one of those vivacious conversations; if that does not convince the Manticorians of who holds the power behind a man then nothing will."

"Umm, okay. This is the first time I have heard you mentioning one of our 'chaotic and utterly polarizing' conversations as anything but a disaster in the making…"

"Of course it will be polarizing, but it will also show the Manticorians that you're not what I or anyone else can call a trophy wife, and that's our final goal." Her mother in law told her, only half bothered from having to hear again the opening of the last scolding she gave to Thomas wives after the most recent social disaster they had engineered.

"Yes, I can see that working, Jane's always loved to tell others about her original art, you can tell magnificent stories about Grayson history as few people can and Quinn's passion for fashionand the livelier side of Grayson Social Scene is also worth admiring."A smile illuminated Kat face as she kept enumerating their virtues.

"While I think that Quinn's attempts to paint a positive picture of the world of fashion and women's gossip networks are exactly what you need to drive Manticore away from Endicott, I can see your point."

The orders came easily from Lady Kay Sloane, "Then it's decided, you're three are going along with Thomas next week to the tour to our mineral collection sites in the Asteroid Belt. It's not exactly the first place I would choose for a brunch, but I know that Jane is inventive enough for make it work, and Quinn can keep an eye on you both to prevent your particular sense of humor from getting out of control."

"Umm Kay, Kat; there is a slight problem with that. Jane is sick; she already got an appointment with Doctor DeMartino, and while I do hope is nothing more than a stomach ache and she needs to rest after the last few days of backbreaking work. I don't know if we can schedule her for this." Daria stated, for once lacking the confidence she had been radiating most of the meeting, it there was one thing that actually make her lose her barrier was the welfare of her sisters.

Kay sat thoughtful for a few seconds before coming to a decision. "I think that your brand of humor might be a little too much for a first contact between the Sloanes and the Manticorians. I'll go to the mines with Elsie and Angier while Tom organizes the visit to our orbital farms, by that time Harrington is probably going to be back already and maybe by then she will be in a better disposition to appreciate your embarrassing stories about some of our most famous historical figures. Even if Jane's still under the weather by then, the clear air and food of the farms should do wonders for her."

After a moment thinking about it Daria responded. "Okay, I can agree to that. As for the rest of the help we need, who should we use?"

"I was thinking Admiral Yanakov is the one who has the greatest need to get in the good graces of admiral Courvosier once more, he has three wonderful wives, and even if Esther is still bedridden, thanks the Tester that it wasn't cancer as we all feared, I think that he can..."

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing the plans that the three women would later present to their husbands.


End file.
